After the church bells tolled, after the minute of silence at 4:58 p.m., the moment the car bomb exploded twenty-five years before, the assassinated Judge Paolo Borsellino's brother read the names of the victims:Paolo BorsellinoAgostino CatalanoEmanuela LoiWalter Eddiee CosinaClaudio Traina

Trump fires the people investigating him. In Sicily, with the complicity of politicians, the mafia kills them. RIP Giovanni Falcone, his wife and three body guards who were blown up with him 25 years ago today. Read "Excellent Cadavers" by Alexander Stille.

And that's not easy because the family as the basic unit of Italian society is built into the Italian constitution. This judge says it is abusive to bring a child to mafia meetings, indoctrinate him for entry into criminal organizations, and reduce his life's horizons. That it is just as much a crime as giving a child a syringe or a kalishnokov rifle. Read the story in English in The Guardian by clicking on the caption. Read More

I wanted to add that the judge is usually dealing with teenaged boys, but girls often go to the justice system to look for help getting out of forced marriages. Mafia bosses want their daughters to marry the sons of certain other mafia bosses to create alliances, to have grandchildren in common, and therefore cement bonds with family blood. Just like kings and queens of yore.

A Palermo judge accused of corruption and abuse of office was suspended from duty today and her salary taken away. Judge Silvana Saguto, who headed the Palermo Tribunal's office in charge of confiscated Mafia goods and businesses, was caught on tape saying she was "like God Almighty." Jobs are scarce in Palermo. When a Mafia business Read More

The remains of anti-mafia Judge Giovanni Falcone, killed by the mafia and the state 23 years ago, were moved in a secret ceremony from the family mausoleum in the Sant' Orsola Cemetery to a place of honor among Sicily's finest historical figures in the Church of San Domenico, Palermo's Pantheon, in Via Roma near the heart of the old city. Read More

Giovanni Falcone and his escort , Francesca Morvillo, Vito Schifani, Rocco Dicillo and Antonio Montinaro, were blown up by the mafia by 500 kilos of explosives on the highway between the Palermo airport and town. I had just returned to the states from Palermo and had been on that road after reporting on that spring's Favignana Read More